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‘You think I’m engaging?’ He looks across at me with a grin so incandescent I almost want to squint.
‘I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I typically function at a lower level of enthusiasm than you do.’
‘And here I thought your deadpan delivery and stony exterior were just an act.’
‘You’re the human embodiment of pep.’
The gleam in his eyes makes it look like he’s perpetually about three seconds away from either divulging a secret or breaking into song. ‘You may be surprised to hear this is not the first time I have been described as “peppy”.’
‘I’m shocked,’ I say, hand fluttering against my chest.
His arms swing by his sides as he walks, like they have to experience as much of the environment as possible. ‘I also get “spirited” a lot. Sometimes “vivacious”.’ He’s momentarily distracted by a red telephone box and points at it, expression hopeful. ‘Should I get in?’
‘Sure,’ I suggest. ‘If you’re in the mood to contract every disease this city has ever known, all while inhaling the pungent odour of stale piss, by all means, step inside the phone box, Finn.’
‘If it wasfreshpiss, I’d do it,’ he says in a low voice as we pass, thankfully without opening the box and unleashing the horrors within. ‘But what about you, what do people call you?’
‘An ogre, probably?’
‘I’ve always had a thing for Shrek,’ he says absent-mindedly, reminding me of that date with the rugby boy. Before I can analyse what he said, I realise we’re at our destination.
Climb on the Trafalgar Square lionswas on Finn’s list, and I figure we’ll have just enough time to do it today before I have to leave.
‘The lions. At your service.’
We squeeze through hordes of tourists down to where four bronze lions rest on massive stone plinths, a few metres above the ground.
‘I have another fun fact for you,’ I say, and Finn’s attention pulls back to me. ‘Legend says these lions will wake when Big Ben chimes thirteen times.’
‘That’s what I was looking for.Funfacts. But now I wanna…’ He gestures towards the lion closest to us, where two kids are posing for a photo for their mum, who’s standing with a baby in a buggy. We move closer and wait for them to finish.
I think there’s a photo of Max and me on these lions as children. It was from those halcyon days of the summer holidays, when the moment you open your eyes all you feel is the unfurling of possibility, soaked in sunshine and warmth and magic. Back when happiness came so easily it felt like a given.
The laughs of the two children jolt me out of my reverie; squeals in high-pitched French as they try to clamber off the lion. The older sister slides off effortlessly and runs back towards their mother, but the younger boy freezes, unsure where to put his hands and feet as he realises how high up he is. Before his mother even notices he’s in distress, Finn approaches him.
‘Tu veux un coup de main?’ he asks softly in French, offering his arm and shoulder for the boy to hold onto as he climbs off.
Once the boy’s reunited with his family, I ask, ‘How many languages do you speak?’
‘A few,’ he says noncommittally, heading towards the back of the lion. Somehow detecting my dissatisfaction with his answer even with his back to me, he turns around and continues, ‘I usually just say four. But I don’t really know how many. My dad spoke Greek to me growing up, and Danish was one of my first languages but I’m not sure how much of it I remember. And then I lived in a few French-speaking countries, and other languages I sort of picked up over the years, mostly just from stuff I learned at school, but I dunno if those count either. Some of them are still in my brain somewhere and come out occasionally. Depends where I am. It’s usually when I’m drunk. I speak, like, ten languages when I’m drunk.’
I mull this over. As someone with a B in GCSE German and not much else, I can’t fathom the idea of speaking so many fragments of languages that you aren’t sure how many of them you speak.
He approaches the statue from behind, using its tail as support before pulling himself up with far more grace than you’d expect from someone scaling a giant brass lion. He settles into place and sits there for a few moments, swinging his legs and looking across Trafalgar Square at the people milling about by the fountains andbeyond.
‘You know you’re a child, right?’ I call up to him.
‘Men have two main passions in life: digging holes and climbing things. Don’t take this one from me.’
I move closer. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Regal,’ he replies, looking down at me with an imperious nod. He slides off elegantly and I briefly try to envision what I’d look like trying to get on and off that thing. Not like that, that’s for sure.
‘And was it worth its spot on the bucket list?’
He adjusts his sleeves and brushes down his trousers like he didn’t just mount a statue. ‘Absolutely.’ He raises his eyebrows and points a thumb behind him. ‘You getting up?’
‘Good joke.’ I step away from the lion, which is immediately overrun by a family who’s been patiently waiting for our departure. Finn shrugs and falls into step beside me as we walk across the square, overconfident pigeons flying far too close to our heads, before perching on the stone wall encircling one of the fountains. I wouldn’t like to know who or what has been in the water, but Finn bravely (or stupidly) dips his hand in regardless.
